Q&A with Tom Venuto
Q. What do you think is the biggest myth about losing weight?
A. Definitely that dieting is the best way to lose weight, when it’s actually the WORST way! Most weight loss programs focus only on one thing, and that’s usually diet. My book is not so much about dieting your body down as it is about building your body up. It’s about getting leaner, but it’s also about building fitness, building strength, building lean muscle, building health and building confidence… and to do that, you have to approach it from more than one angle. Nutrition is the most important part, but there are four elements you need to transform your body in the shortest amount of time, and most people are missing the other three. Those are the people who say they’ve tried everything, and failed—when the truth is that their previous efforts didn’t focus on the complete picture.
Q. Why is resistance training so important even if someone’s goal is just to lose weight?
A. If you diet and you don’t do resistance training at the same time, you can lose between 30% and 50% of your weight loss in form of lean body mass. If you want to keep the muscle you have, you have to do resistance training. If you just diet, you WILL lose weight, but you’ll just become a smaller version of yourself – you’ll turn into a skinny fat person.
Q. What is the biggest mistake people make when trying to lose weight?
A. Focusing only on food quality or only on food quantity.
Those who focus only on food quantity believe that weight loss is only about calories-in-versus-calories-out, and “a calorie is just a calorie.” Those who focus only on food quality believe that weight loss is only about the nutritional value of the food, not the calories, so if they only eat health foods, they’ll automatically lose weight.
The truth is, if you want to get leaner and get healthier, you need focus on both – calorie quantity and calorie quality, not one or the other.
Q. Is there anything new in the science of burning fat and building muscle that everyone should know about?
A. The biggest breakthrough is that we’re finding that each person’s body type is unique and may need a different approach than other people’s. Most diet programs are very rigid about certain things: for example, saying everyone should eat low carbs. But what we’re discovering as research advances is that everyone is different. Some people get leaner and healthier on lower carbs, some people respond better to high carbs, and most people find that a healthy balance is right in the middle. So the science is confirming that the best approach is to customize your plan for your body type. That’s exactly what I show you how to do in BURN THE FAT, FEED THE MUSCLE.
Q. Is it ever too late?
A. Never! In fact, when you think about how you lose muscle every year if you don’t train, it’s too late not to start, no matter what your age. Resistance training combined with the right nutrition can take ten years off your biological age; it’s literally the fountain of youth. And I’m not just talking about a great body; I’m talking about great health, too.
About the Author
TOM VENUTO is a fat-loss expert, transformation coach and bestselling author. Tom holds a degree in exercise science and has worked in the fitness industry since 1989, including fourteen years as a personal trainer. He promotes all-natural, healthy strategies for burning fat and building muscle, and as a lifetime steroid-free bodybuilder, he’s been there and done it himself. Tom blends the latest science with a realistic, commonsense approach to transforming your body forever.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 1
Fat-Burning Secrets of the Leanest People in the World
"If you want to know about fat loss or muscle building, ask top level bodybuilders. These guys know it. In other words, quit buying fat-loss devices off of late night TV ads, quit buying fat-loss stuff that grandma tried when her cribbage partner mentioned it, and quit trying fad diets. Instead, listen to the best of the best."
--Dan John, strength coach and author of Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning
Life is short, time is precious, and you are busy. You don't have hours to waste and you want results as quickly as possible. So what's the fastest way to burn fat and get in great shape? Simple: Model yourself after an expert. Any time you attempt something new, there's a learning curve, but if you have the right coach, you can bypass years of trial, error, and frustration. The big question is, with all the noise in the diet and fitness world today, how do you choose your mentors? Who should you listen to? What sources can you trust?
Let me suggest the same strategy to you that I've put to use for my personal training and coaching clients for years: If you want to shed fat and build lean muscle, learn from the leanest, bestbuilt people in the world--bodybuilders. Why? Again, it's simple: Bodybuilders and other physique athletes (figure, fitness, fitness model, and bikini competitors) are the world's greatest experts in the art and science of body transformation.
Athletes in physique sports do things differently from--sometimes the exact opposite of--everyone else. Here's just a taste of what this program will reveal about their methods.
1. Physique athletes don't diet--not in the conventional sense. Diets don't work; you'll find out why in the next chapter. In fact, bodybuilders are well-known for how much food they eat. It doesn't seem possible that you can "eat more and burn more," but on this plan, you really can.
2. Physique athletes are masters at stripping off the last 10 to 15 pounds of stubborn fat. Most people get stuck on those final pounds, but this method can strip off all the fat--all the way to sixpack abs. You may not want to get so lean that people say, "Wow, you are ripped!" But if you do, this is how it's done.
3. Physique athletes don't lose muscle. What good is it to lose weight if half of it is lean body mass? If you want to lose 20 pounds as fast as possible, we could saw off one of your legs. That sounds ridiculous, but it's exactly what most people are doing with crazy starvation diets: burning off their own muscle. Follow this plan and you won't just lose weight, you'll burn fat, keep muscle, and completely transform your body.
4. Physique athletes know how to break plateaus. By tracking body composition (instead of only body weight), charting progress, and using a performance feedback loop system, you can break any plateau. You'll know when you're stuck and what to do to get "unstuck."
5. Physique athletes (and fitness models) have to show up in shape on a specific date. If you use their system, you can "dial it in" whenever you want to get in peak shape--for a vacation, a reunion, a wedding, a whole summer, a body transformation contest, or even your own photo shoot. You can get as lean as you want, when you want. You'll be in complete control of the timing and speed of your results.
I could go on and on about the unique tactics that bodybuilders use: nutrient timing, carb cycling, modified lowcarb diets, protein optimization, hydration strategies, macronutrient tweaks that no one else talks about--not to mention the unique training style designed to make you stronger and healthier and look great naked at the same time. But we'll get to these topics soon enough.
For now, it's sufficient to know that Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is a health and fitness philosophy that has been quietly tested and proven in the bodybuilding and physique world for decades. These are the secrets of the leanest people in the world. Until now the only place you could get this kind of information is if you were one of my personal clients, if you are a member of my inner circle, or you had your own coach who was privy to the physique athlete style of nutrition and training. Now I can be your coach through this book.
It's important to know that this book was written by a bodybuilder, but it's not just for bodybuilders. Think of using this program as simply "stealing" some of their secrets to help you achieve your own personal goals. I do work with physique competitors, and the advanced acceleration strategies in the final chapters of this book can be used to go all the way to competitionstage or photoshoot shape. But this book is for any man or woman who wants to shed fat, get lean, and transform their body without losing muscle and without starvation, drugs, or diet gimmicks.
Most people don't want to be bodybuilders. But let me bounce an idea off of you. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is not about dieting your body down as much as it's about building your body up. When you follow this program, you'll build strength, health, energy, discipline, and selfconfidence, not to mention lean muscle. I always believed that anyone who lifts weights and feeds their body nutritiously could call themselves a "bodybuilder."
So after you start the program, why not try that and say, "I am a bodybuilder." Or say something similar that resonates with you more, like "I am a body sculptor," "I am a strength athlete," or "I am a fitness athlete." You may not look or feel like one yet, but when you affirm it, you'll get there faster. It's miraculous how the words you use to describe yourself can shape your identity, change your selfimage, and, in turn, change your behavior. You'll learn more about the psychology of affirmations in Chapter 6. It really is amazing!
WHY THIS IS THE MOST UNIQUE AND EFFECTIVE FAT-LOSS AND BODY-TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM IN THE WORLD
Before you dive into the program, I want to give you a quick overview of the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle principles. I'll explain the ten most important ways this program is unique, and why I believe this is the most powerful fatloss and bodytransformation system ever developed. This will give you the big picture, and I hope it gets you even more excited about the journey you're about to begin.
1. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is not a weight-loss program, it's a fat-loss program.
Weight loss and fat loss are not the same thing. The scale can be misleading if it's the only way you measure your progress, because the scale doesn't tell you the difference between fat weight and muscle weight. For example, a woman could weigh 110 pounds but have 33 percent body fat. That's what you call a "skinny fat person." On the other hand, a welltrained female athlete could weigh 150 pounds and be very lean, with 16 percent body fat. That's what you call "solid muscle."
What matters most is your ratio of muscle to fat--your body composition. With this distinction in mind, losing weight should not be your only goal. Your main focus should be burning the fat and keeping the muscle. As long as your body is mostly muscle, then you shouldn't worry so much about your total body weight. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle will teach you how to measure your body fat and use body composition to track your progress. You'll learn how to get results as fast as possible, but you'll also be reminded that there's a world of difference between rapid weight loss and permanent fat loss.
2. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is not a diet, it's a nutrition program.
Crash diets are tempting because they can produce quick weight loss, at least in the beginning. The problem is, when you cut calories too much, or banish entire food groups, you may not get enough vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, or fiber. Reduce your carbohydrates too much, and your energy level takes a nosedive. If you fall short on protein, you could lose lean body mass, which slows your metabolism and makes you softer and weaker. You might weigh less and fit into a smaller size, but your body still looks flabby.
Even if you grit your teeth and willpower your way through an extreme diet for a few months, the consequences outweigh the benefits. Deprivation diets make you lethargic, hungry, and miserable. You can't stay on them forever, so the weight loss rarely lasts. As you read this book, you'll discover that if you eat the right foods, you can actually eat more and nourish your body with all the nutrients it needs. You'll not only burn fat faster and keep it off, you'll also get healthier and feel more energized at the same time.
3. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is not about nutrition or training; it's about both.
You'll lose weight on any diet with a calorie deficit, but when you add training, you'll burn more fat without slowing down your metabolism or losing muscle. Putting training and nutrition together is the difference between transforming your body and simply losing weight. Research has also proven that exercise is critical for longterm weight maintenance. You might take the fat off with dieting alone, but you'll have a hard time keeping it off.
When you make training a part of your lifestyle, you can eat more and still have the caloric deficit you need to burn fat. And when your training includes lifting weights, not just cardio, more of what you eat is partitioned into muscle. Don't starve the fat with diets: Burn the fat with training and feed the muscle with nutrition.
4. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is not only about looking better but also about becoming healthier.
The nutrition and training guidelines I give for transforming your body are the same simple lifestyle changes I recommend for good health. If you want to look like a fitness model, get ripped, or peak for a photo shoot, a stricter and more sophisticated plan may be necessary. I explain how to ramp up your training and tighten up your nutrition to accelerate fat loss in the last part of the book. But after a special peaking event is over, you return to the same balanced lifestyle plan.
There's nothing wrong with training harder and using stricter diets to pursue extreme leanness at times. And there's nothing wrong with setting purely cosmetic ("vanity") goals. But there's more to Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle than getting super lean. You're going to be setting a lot of goals in this program. To keep yourself in balance, make sure you set goals for looking great and getting healthier. This means following sensible nutrition and training practices, as well as avoiding drugs or potentially harmful diet pills. It means 100 percent natural!
5. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is a lifestyle, not a quick fix.
The word "diet" comes from the Latin diaeta, meaning "way of life." Today, however, I think the word "diet" carries too much negative baggage to use so loosely. The way I define it, a diet is any temporary change in your eating behavior to try to lose weight. When you say you're going on a diet, you're implying that at some point you're going off it.
Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is not something you go on and off; it's a lifestyle. The only way you'll get lean and stay lean is to choose new behaviors, develop new habits, and maintain them for life. You'll need a calorie deficit during your fatloss phase, but the rest of your nutrition will be similar all year round, regardless of whether your goal is burning, building, or maintaining.
This program is not a quick fix. But you will get results quickly. If you've never used a program like this before--one that covers all bases--and if you diligently put into action all four elements of the plan at the same time, you will see incredible results in the first 28 days. You will lose pure fat, not just weight, you will transform your body shape and you will already have new habits established that will keep you lean for life.
6. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is based on science and experience, not one or the other.
Most scientists live by the credo "Prove all things." That's good advice for the rest of us, too, especially when we're evaluating claims that seem too good to be true. Science and critical thinking are important tools for helping us design our fitness programs, sort through information overload, and avoid being taken by charlatans and con artists.
However, being so scientific and skeptical that you trust studies over your own experience can be hazardous to your progress. That's why this book is based on both science and realworld results. We should never deny or ignore the results of wellperformed research. We should never dismiss the results of our own experience, either, when results are the one thing that counts the most. At some point in your journey, you have to start experimenting, measuring progress, and drawing conclusions based on your own results.
Some of the nutrition and training methods used by bodybuilders are controversial, and throughout this book I'll be sure to point that out wherever that's the case. Research results may be conflicting or there's not much evidence either way. But if you wait for enough studies to validate every nutrition and training technique that has already been proven effective out in the trenches, you could be waiting a long time. When it comes to body transformation, physique athletes are often ahead of the science, and the results they've achieved prove it.
7. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is simple, but it's not easy.
Burning fat is simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. "Simple" means uncomplicated. "Easy" implies little or no effort. Losing weight is a simple matter of achieving a calorie deficit. There's nothing complicated about that. But balancing energy in and energy out in a modern, sedentary, temptationfilled environment is easier said than done.
Fat loss isn't always easy. Most diet experts won't admit it, because "effortless and overnight" is marketable. "Hard work" scares people away. But hard work is the only way anyone accomplishes great things. Everything worth having in life has a price attached to it. Legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi put it best when he said, "The dictionary is the only place success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must all pay for success."
